Yale grad to walk across country in silence

Like many of his peers in the Class of 2013, Gregory Hindy ’13 plans to spend the next year traveling the country. The only difference? Hindy will be walking from New Hampshire to Los Angeles — all without speaking a word.

On Tuesday, Hindy left his home in Nashua, N.H. to begin the year-long trek toward California in what he called an art project. He has raised more than $8,000 on his Kickstarter page for the trip.

Hindy wrote that the “golden rule” for his journey is that he can only walk, capture photographs and perform tasks necessary to his survival. When he does need to communicate in the upcoming months, Hindy prepared a few cards to explain his journey and convey other simple messages.

“Part of what makes it a performance is that it includes adhering to strict rules, which are designed not for fun or convenience or for the purpose of taking better photographs, but for the purpose of making a statement as an artist,” Hindy wrote.

A cognitive science major, Hindy’s journey was inspired by Tehching Hsieh, an artist who famously completed year-long pieces of performance art in the 1970s and 1980s. Hindy plans to use a black-and-white film camera to document the landscape and people he encounters, and will narrate his personal development through daily photography portraits.

He hopes to arrive in the Los Angeles area on July 9 2014 — his 23rd birthday.